


Rain Will Make the Flowers Grow

by WaitingForMy



Series: Imaginary Friend [8]
Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abandonment Issues, F/M, Flower Crowns, Flowers, Implied Sexual Content, Musical References, My favorite beta likes it when the clown’s gloves come off
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 12:19:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18873079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaitingForMy/pseuds/WaitingForMy
Summary: You fell asleep together, but you wake up alone.





	Rain Will Make the Flowers Grow

**Author's Note:**

> It’s storming like all hell as I post this, lol. The title is a reference to the song of the same title from Les Misérables.
> 
> How about that Chapter Two trailer?

Contrary to what one might intuit,  _ It _ was not unfamiliar with the tenderer pleasures Earth had to offer. For how could one survive an eternity and never feel mercy? Affection? Gratefulness?

No—It often passed the more boring hours by partaking in Earthly delights. The sights, the smells, food, games, sex. More than once, in the shape of a human It called Bob Gray, it lost a night or two at a dirty dive bar, high on smoke, alcohol, and human women. Once, in the shape of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, It sat in a field near the train tracks making daisy chains with a little girl whom It feared losing very much, and It had been happy. So blindingly happy, in fact, that it felt as though it could never end.

It’s long rest, however, always comes. They always forget. It always moves on.

It did lose that little girl, and there was no way of getting her back. The woman asleep in the child’s bed...well, that was a woman, touched and twisted and broken by human hands. A beautiful woman. A woman nonetheless. Grown. Changed. Not the little girl that placed a flower crown atop Pennywise the Clown’s fiery hair, smiling warmer than the summer sun. Perhaps it cared for the woman she had become in some way. It craved her body, at the very least.

Yet, when she slept, eyes softly shut and lips pursed slightly, It saw Its little girl within that body which It had defiled, and It felt sick.

It was not unfamiliar with the tenderer pleasures Earth had to offer, nor was it immune to its tortures. Hate. Pain. Guilt. Guilt.  _ Guilt. _

Pennywise the Dancing Clown slunk away into the cool light of morning.

* * *

You woke up alone, your nerves still alight with the phantom sensations of him inside you, his skin on yours, his weight pressing you into the bed. You slowly untangled your limbs from the bedsheets, enjoying the soreness in your limbs. Your body felt good, and if you felt sick and dirty and awful, it was worth it.

It’s not as if it was the first time you’d had sex with Pennywise. It was the third, and the first time you’d actually consented, and you hadn’t even been injured. You had no reason to feel sick and dirty and awful. What, then, was this dark feeling in the pit of your stomach?

“Pennywise?” you called into your empty room. You did not receive an answer, not a sound, no movement, nothing, and tears sprung into your eyes as you were overcome by the sudden, crippling fear that he had left you and was never coming back.  _ That’s ridiculous _ , you reminded yourself.  _ Of course, he’ll be back _ . But the fear kept nagging. You jumped out of bed and made your way downstairs, in desperate need of a distraction. It was not lost on you just how pathetic that was.

You caught a glimpse of the cat out of the corner of your eye as he darted behind the couch. You rolled your eyes. Why couldn’t your parents have a normal pet that you could, you know, hang out with? Anything to get your mind off the cold, empty feeling your imaginary friend left inside you when he disappeared.

You smirked. That wasn’t  _ all _ he left inside you.

Oh, god, you were thinking like a horny, lovesick teenager. This was just a  _ fling _ . You were only back in Derry for a  _ month _ , for Christ’s sake. Why not screw around with a ghost from your past? No harm, no foul, and all that.

But that made it all sound so normal, like this particular ghost from your past wasn’t some kind of unworldly evil, incomprehensible to the human mind. That familiar, sick feeling crept into your stomach. He wasn’t just some old high school boyfriend or something. He wasn’t even a “he,” at all. He was…something completely out of your realm of understanding or control, and you weren’t entirely convinced that he didn’t mean to hurt you. You remembered the night you arrived…your nightmare… 

Jesus Christ, did you have Stockholm Syndrome? Or maybe he had you hypnotized somehow.

…And you cringed, because you didn’t give a shit either way.

You needed to get out of the house, was all. You’d been cooped up inside, since arriving in Derry, and it was going to your head. Cabin Fever. You just needed to take a walk…but not in your cum-stained pajama pants, so you ambled your way back up the stairs. You changed into a sundress and a pair of sandals. You thought about putting your hair up, but that was harder than it sounded with a broken wrist, and it would require detangling that mess. Damn sex hair. Besides, who were you trying to look cute for? Pennywise was gone, and even if he wasn’t, he clearly didn’t pay any mind to what you wore or how you did your hair.

The gray sky threatened to rain as you walked towards the flower field near the train tracks, where you used to go to play. You had so much imagination, when you were young. You could make a castle out of a fallen tree and a lava-filled moat out of a dry creek bed. The flower field has been your fairyland, but the grass and flowers seemed a lot shorter than you remembered. You used to be able to hide your whole self in them just by sitting down. Sitting down did little to obscure you, now. It probably looked strange for a grown woman to be sitting by herself in an overgrown field of white flowers, but you willed yourself not to care. You couldn’t start letting your age get to you, now. You weren’t old enough for  _ that. _ But in that field, your adulthood was all wrong. You felt like a little girl in a woman’s body, uncomfortable and perhaps a little bit afraid.

While your mind wandered, you picked a few flowers and began carving holes in the stems with your thumbnail, but your fingers kept slipping and tearing them. You frowned. When you were six, you could make a daisy chain with your eyes closed. Maybe your hands had just gotten to big. Pennywise was never able to make them… 

“Gentle,” you mumbled to yourself. “Cut it slowly…”

* * *

 

“…like with a knife.” You demonstrated. “Don’t push so hard; you’re squishing it! Here, let me help.” You reached over and snatched Pennywise’s gloves off his hands. “You can’t do it with gloves on, stupid.”

“Stupid” was a new, exciting word. Your parents wouldn’t let you say it, but Pennywise would. He sat next to you in the field, trying and failing to copy you as you made a daisy chain.

You shook your head and clicked your tongue, like Mrs. Wesley did when someone in your first grade class did something silly. “Your fingernails are too short,” you said. “Do you want me to make the holes for you?”

“No,” he responded, grinning. “I’m going to do a magic trick. Close your eyes.”

You did.

“Now open them.”

His fingernails had grown into sharp claws in just a few seconds. Your eyes widened.

“Woah. How did you do that?”

“I told you, [YN]. It’s magic.”

He still couldn’t make a daisy chain, though. His hands were just too big, you decided. He kept breaking the stems. You, on the other hand, were already finishing your second. You connected the last flower back to the first.

“Here. This one is for you.” You had to stand up to place the crown upon his head. You wore a matching one. You grabbed his hands. “Now, you look beautiful.”

He grimaced, then forced it into a smile. “As do you, [YN].”

You sat back down and began working on a third chain. This one would be a necklace. It would have to be longer…

While you worked, Pennywise absentmindedly nuzzled your hair. His body went rigid. “Why are you afraid?”

You chewed your bottom lip. “Dad said it’s going to storm tonight.”

“Are you afraid of storms, [YN]?”

You nodded.

Pennywise huffed and put his arm around you. “I will keep you safe.”

His incredulous tone confused you. You looked up at him, eyes wide. “You mean it?”

“Of course I mean it.”

He refused to look at you. You felt bad for making him upset.

* * *

Thunder rolled in the distance as you made your way back up to your front porch. A drop of rain fell here and there. Your timing was perfect, it would seem, but you had been wrong about one thing; getting out of the house had done little to ease your troubled mind. You stepped back into your empty house, closed and locked the door behind you.

No, not  _ your _ empty house. An empty house that  _ used to be  _ yours. It was your parents’ house. You hadn’t thought of it as yours in years.

You headed for the kitchen, thinking about what to eat for lunch. A sandwich would be easy, but damn, you hadn’t eaten breakfast. You probably needed more than just—

Your heart jumped into your throat. A perfect daisy chain sat on your kitchen counter, looking more sinister than a simple ring of flowers ever should. You approached it slowly, shakily, as if it were a bomb ready to blow the whole house and you and the cat to Jupiter. You touched it, softly at first, then picked it up.

“You learned how to do it,” you said.

The house was silent.

You sighed, set the crown back down, and headed for the fridge.

He’d be back. Right? He had to come back.

Rain began to patter on the window by the sink, and you thought of the words to a song.

And you  _ will keep me safe. _

_ And you will keep me close. _

_ And rain will make the flowers grow. _


End file.
